The role of multiple glacier outburst floods in proglacial landscape evolution: The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Iceland

Dunning, Stuart, Large, Andrew, Russell, Andrew J., Roberts, Matthew, Duller, Robert, Woodward, John, Meriaux, Anne-Sophie, Tweed, Fiona and Lim, Michael (2013) The role of multiple glacier outburst floods in proglacial landscape evolution: The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Iceland. Geology, 41 (10). pp. 1123-1126. ISSN 0091-7613

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Abstract

The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland provided a unique opportunity to quantify
the evolution of proglacial geomorphology during a series of volcanogenic jökulhlaups (glacial
outburst floods) (>140 events). Time-lapse imagery and repeat terrestrial laser scans before and
directly after the eruption show that the jökulhlaup of 14 April 2010 composed 61% of the 57 ×
10 6 m 3 total discharge of the combined events, and had the highest peak discharge for the two
main fl ood events, but only deposited 18% of the total volume of sediment in front of Gígjökull
glacier. The majority of sediments (67% of a total volume of 17.12 × 10 6 m 3 ) were deposited
by the 15 April 2010 jökulhlaup, and this was followed by extensive reworking by a series of
smaller jökulhlaups over the following 29 days that deposited 15% of the total sediment. The
geomorphological and sedimentary signatures of the two largest jökulhlaups associated with
the onset of the eruption have either been reworked by later fl oods or are buried by later flood
deposits. Consequently, the ice-proximal, post-eruption landscape cannot be used to reconstruct
the characteristics or magnitudes of either of the two largest jökulhlaups. The fi ndings support
a complex-response model in which peak discharge and the bulk of the sediment transported
is decoupled by changing routing mechanisms and water:sediment ratios during the eruption.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published online first 30/7/2013.
Subjects:	F600 Geology
Department:	Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Geography and Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Stuart Dunning
Date Deposited:	09 Aug 2013 13:08
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2019 00:36
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/13342

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